The Phoenix Feather and Sagacious Arc

In the grand tradition of martial arts fantasies, The Phoenix Feather begins twenty-five yearsafter a pair of lovers ran for their lives from an angry prince and washed up on an island where they adopted new identities—and found themselves blessed by an omen promising great things, a single golden phoenix feather.

Their eldest child, a natural...

A generation ago, a sworn bodyguard and a reluctant bride fled an angry prince, married in secret, and vanished. That prince is now the emperor, with a very long memory.

The children of the missing pair are now making their way in the world under assumed names, hoping to avoid the emperor’s wrath while following their special Talents.

The eldest...

In the third volume of The Phoenix Feather epic martial arts adventure, the Redbark gang has broken up. Muin is rising in the imperial army; Yskanda lives day to day in the silken prison of the imperial court, hiding among his paints until an eerie encounter changes everything.

Prince Jion returns to the imperial palace in disgrace; Ryu, tired of...

The last installment of The Phoenix Feather martial arts epic, which readers are acclaiming as a spiritual cousin to The Goblin Emperor, puts the entire Afan family in action.

Once hiding on an obscure island, the elders are drawn into empire affairs, the parents, in seeking their children, as the emperor seeks them. Muin’s skills as a commander...

In this first in a series set in the world of the Phoenix Feather quartet, Bu is twelve and near-sighted, an unwanted daughter sent to a music audition. If she fails, she’s on her own. Elderly Granny Zim, who knows that soon she must retire as head of the music academy, is fascinated by YinYin, a student who might not be human. YinYin and Bu...

The final book in the Phoenix Feather and Sagacious series, Sagacious Blade brings the story full circle.

It would be difficult to find two boys more unlike.

Friendly, animal-loving Ki Mek, youngest of a sprawling family of gallant wanderers, was born with Essence talent—much to the dismay of the Kis, who only believe in the skills of their...

Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of Tribute and the Phoenix Feather quartet…

The second half of the story of sixteen-year-old Lan Renti’s rise to the phoenix throne begins literally in the air, as she returns to her ship of wanderers, crying hard after leaving the brother she sought for four years. But her brother sees her as a young...

Set in the tumultuous, magic-filled history of the Phoenix Feather quartet…

How did scholarly, modest Lan Renti, lowest ranking of the troubled imperial clan, rise to become the Sage Empress, first woman ruler in the long history of the Empire of a Thousand Isles?

Aware of how the official records embellish (or sidestep) the truth, she’s...

Sherwood Smith’s media happy place tends toward braided tales, with characters growing and changing in a world both breathtaking and strange, where striving to become the best one can be matters. She found that in Chinese and Korean historical dramas, which kicked off years of immersion in East Asian history, literature, art, and language.

In...